Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Charging your S-Pedelec batteries

We frequently get questions about charging and battery life of the GoSwiss systems on the HP Velotechnik bikes and trikes. To help with your questions, here is the latest information I have received from HP Velotechnik:

In terms of warantee, GoSwiss guarantees you will get at least 500 cycles to a 70% remainder of original capacity. Cycles are always calculated using full charging cycles.

"Partial charging can cause problems with the battery and may cause the system to loose capacity at an unusually high rate. Fortunately, there is an easy fix - run the battery down to the point where it
shuts down while driving. At this point, using the lights is no good and actually
somewhat dangerous as the remaining charge then really is at the limit
before the (battery) system shuts down.

Once the battery has gone into safe sleep mode it should be charged
without interruption for at least 6 - 8 hours once. That actually is
called a learning cycle and should restore full capacity. If it doesn't
do it straight away, it may take a second charge with the battery being
awakened (as it ALWAYS should) by quickly pushing the test button before
attaching the charging plug (note, this refers to the newer batteries that require the wake up if left unused for a week or more).

Top up trickle charging is something many people tend to do supposedly
"to be on the safe side" in regard to range. But they are killing their
batteries that way. Actually running it down until it shuts off is
healthy and necessary from time to time. It is a pedelec system after
all, i.e. can be purely pedal driven as well."

If you are concerned about your system, please take your trike to your local HP Velotechnik dealer for a diagnostic check. First generation S-Pedelec systems require a special cable to run the software (your dealer may or may not have it). the second generation system uses a male/male USB plug.